1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a key generation method for self-configuration. More particularly, the present invention relates to a key generation method which enables terminal nodes establishing a network to let a new node join the network by themselves and to allocate a key to the new node without a centralized key management and distribution server.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, key generation and management methods include centralized key generation methods and distributed group key generation methods.
FIG. 1 depicts a centralized key generation method. Referring to FIG. 1, according to a centralized key generation method, a key distribution server allocates private keys to a plurality of nodes forming a network. Disadvantageously, errors occurring at the key distribution server affect the entire network and it is difficult to apply the centralized key generation method to a self-organized network where a node forming the network arbitrarily and repeatedly joins or leaves the network. Types of self-configuration networks include ad-hoc networks and mesh networks.
FIG. 2 depicts a distributed group key generation method. Referring to FIG. 2, according to a distributed group key generation method, when a new node joins a network, group keys of both the new node and the existing nodes forming the network need to be updated at the same time. Since all of the nodes establishing the network need to update their keys at the same time, the computational complexity becomes too high and it is hard to apply the distributed group key generation method to a self-organized network.